


#52.5 The Children

by nev_longbottom



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-18
Updated: 2010-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:15:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29894094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nev_longbottom/pseuds/nev_longbottom
Summary: Gerard and Mikey have four parents. Two Yeerk parents, two Controller parents.





	1. Frank POV

**Author's Note:**

> Different versions of the same fic that I tried to write from multiple POVs/approaches. Enjoy.

The way Frank Iero saw it, he had the most boring life in the world. So boring. He woke up, he went to school, he watched the bulletin boards to see if one of the clubs would put on an event that wasn’t completely lame but sounded lame enough for his parents to let him go, and then he went home where his Dad helped him finish his homework and Ma got home in time to make Frank feel guilty about not cleaning his room.

His parents were kind of crazy overprotective. He wasn’t allowed to hang out with anyone unless his parents approved of them first and he couldn’t so much as go into the backyard without a bunch of questions. If it wasn’t for his best friend Mikey transfering into the school, he would have probably turned into a total tool. He would have kept studying like a bajillion hours a week and joined the biggest club for complete tools, The Sharing. What kind of name was that for a club, anyway? 

At least with Mikey as his best friend and his brother Gee, as his cool, older friend, he still had a purpose to rebel. Sort of. Anyways, he had a place to go to when he finished his math homework up til the end of the week and decided to climb out his window to sneak over to their place.

Frank threw his textbooks off his desk on to the bed. His window was centered right over the desk and even though his parents had the bedroom on the second floor, Frank had begged for the groundfloor room when they moved into the new digs.

At a slow jog, it took twenty minutes to cross down to Mikey’s freaky looking house. THe actual house looked normal enough, white and pink with shingles, but when you considered who lived inside, the house was freaking creepy. 

Frank snuck in through the garage. He didn’t want to run into their parents. They had perpetual oatmeal breath. Freaky-deaky. He had learned through the past few years of being Mikey’s friend, that the Way’s never locked any of their doors ever. It made sneaking in pretty damn easy and a little creepy.

On the other hand, the garage was really cool. All kinds of soldering tools and hammers, bits of computer parts and what totally looked like a giant radio antenna in the corner. Frank reached for the doorknob and then froze. He heard yelling inside. Mrs. Way was screaming and Mr could hear Mr. Way cursing someone out. There were smashing noises and the sick thunk of plaster crumbling. Frank stepped away from the door. Whatever was going on sounded really ugly.

The door swung open, hitting Frank in the face. Gerard and Mikey ran past him and towards the car.”Ow,” Frank yelled, hands reaching towards his face.

‘“Shit. Frank, get in the car.” Frank hesitated and then heard more yelling inside the house. He glanced in through the doorway and he saw...

It was a monster. A tall monster covered in razorblades and knees that bent the wrong way. It held a gun and it was shooting lasers into the kitchen space without making a noise.

Frank ran for the car, hitting the garage open button on his way. He didn’t even have a chance to close his door before Gerard hit the acceleration and started peeling them out of the driveway.

Mikey climbed over the passenger seat and yanked it shut. Frank sat up, and looked ast the guys. Gerard had some ugly burns in his side and Mikey had half his hair burned off the left side. Frank thought Mikey was going to stop moving but instead he pulled open the back seat and started climbing into the trans am trunk riffling around.

“How many kits are in the back?” Gerard’s eyes flicked over to Frank in the rearview mirror. “Frank, you okay?”

Frank thought about how the world felt like it had been yanked out from under him. “Not really. Can I..” he thought about the thing in Gerard’s room. The monster. Why was it after them? “What are you guys involved with?”

Mikey crawled out of the trunk with an open duffle bag. His glasses were crooked, one of the lenses was cracked down the side. “Four kits. Pull over at Walmart, I need to change the license plates.”

“Frank, now is not the time for that talk. We talk when we get to Bob’s house.”

Frank made a face. “Bob Bryar? Your old babysitter? Why do we need a manny to protect us from whatever that was.”

“Hork-Bajir.”

“Gesunheit?”

“The thing was a Hork Bajir. It’s an alien.” Gerard gave him an apologetic look in the rearview mirror. “It’s a long story.”


	2. Gerard POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Odd Life of One Fabulous Killjoy

Gerard’s life starts with a dream

Gerard raises his hand to try and block out some of the stage lights. He’s been under them over a thousand times but it never really gets old. The crowd has been screaming as long as he’s been there and he can see Mikey pulling his bass strap over his shoulder in a smooth practiced mood. 

He squints looking either way before he spots the microphone stand, just over to the left and he steps up carefully. The cheering gets even louder. He opens his mouth to sing but before he can even say a word, the opening beats to Rihanna’s “Umbrella” start crashing in his monitors.

“Come on, Gee. Wake up!”

When he lifts his head off his pillow, he sees his mother’s hand smack his alarm clock a couple times before he realizes he isn’t sleeping. “Mmphrk,” he whines, pulling his old DC superheroes comforter closer.

“Gerard Darwin Way, I will rip those blankets off you if you don’t sit up right this minute.”

He sat up, yanking his blanket up to cover as much of his chest as he could. “Mom,” he hissed. “I’m not decent!” He peeked under the blanket to double check and sure enough, he had fallen asleep naked again. He leaned over the side of his bed and saw his beach towel on the floor, under his mom’s black pointy heels.

His mother rolled her eyes. She was wearing her business suit, the one she used for conference calls. Gerard sat up, absolutely horrified. She hadn’t worn that suit in years. Not since she and Dad quit working for the Council and took everyone into hiding.

“Mom?” He whispered. It wasn’t just the work suit. She was holding one of _those duffle bags. The ones his parents had made him and Mikey carry around for years before they finally just went into hiding. Two weeks rations, water purifiers, a few hundreds in cash, and a transmitter. He couldn’t believe she was- That it was- They were going to have to run but why was Mom dressed like- He looked at her face and saw the way it was carefully blank, the way she always made her face go when she didn’t want anyone to know how she was feeling. Not like Dad and the way he seemed more human than any of them._

_She dropped the bag on the floor and wrapped her arms around him. Gerard didn’t ever realize he had started shaking until he felt her arms come still around him. “You have to be strong for Mikey. Promise me.”_

_Gerard couldn’t even speak. He just nodded his head._

_“Esplin has your father. Get dressed. I’ll debrief you downstairs. Not a word to your brother.” Gerard just registered the kiss on his forehead before she brought herself up and strode out of the room. For a moment, he hated his mom for being able to detach herself so completely from her body._

_He down at the duffle bag, where it lay on the ground. “Fuck.”_

_***_

_Gerard can still remember being five years old, and sleeping on one of the huge bunks on his parents spaceship. He shared it with Mikey who squirmed in his sleep all the time. Dad would say, “Whose my little taxxon?” right before blowing bubbles on Mikey’s stomach._

_They used to make fun of the lame stuff other people had and Dad would homeschool Gee so he would be ready for Kindergarden. Sometimes, a yellow light would flash in the ship and Dad would shove them in the supply closet while Mom raced to pull on one of her work armbands._

_When Gerard was seven, Mom and Dad sat them down to talk to them. Mikey spent most of the time playing with his action figure unicorns, but Gerard can remember most of it._

_Mom had explained that she and Dad were Yeerks, which was really confusing because Gerard thought he and Mikey were Yeerks too but then Dad explained that no, Gerard and Mikey were human. Gerard remembers that part pretty clearly because he kept trying to argue against it._

_Then Dad crawled out of Mr. Gervais’s ear and it became pretty clear that, yeah, Dad was a slug from outer space. And then Mom went on to explain they they were from a race of evil slugs from space and that they were defecting forever to keep evil slugs out of Gee and Mikey’s heads._

_That’s also when Gee found out where babies came from. He tries not to think about that part._

_The important bits though, were their parents, Edriss 562 and Essam 293, loved Gerard and Mikey so much they were going to disappear into the human race and do everything they could to keep the Yeerks off their planet. Oh, and they were going to start school and they would have to move out of the spaceship._

_Gerard really hadn’t like the last bit but he got used to it._

_Growing up with alien slug parents made growing up kinda interesting. They freaked out when they saw what passed for school on earth and made Gerard and Mikey spend a couple hours everyday studying real science and math. They had zero space transponders in every room of the house to keep an ear out for Yeerk ships in the area. There was an ugly patch when Gerard found out human’s don’t eat oatmeal for breakfast and as part of every meal. He and Mikey held a pretty ineffective hungerstrike until Dad chewed them out for it and explained that without natural Yeerk food, him and Mom needed oatmeal cooked in Rooibos to live. That made them go back to eating oatmeal real fast._

_That stuff made them kind of isolated from their classmates at their private school but Gerard didn’t mind. Lady of our Sorrows was the sort of place where no one really made much of an effort to talk to each other if you weren’t a part of some kind of special club. Tennis, Hockey, Badminton, Geography. and so on. Gerard started telling people he was on the croquet team just so the guidance counselors would stop calling the house to talk about Gerard’s “social inabilities.”_

_“You can rewire an Apple computer into a Dracon beam in fifteen minutes or less. The emphasis humans place on social norms just baffle me.” Dad said after every call. It took the pressure off being the loner art student in the corner and it meant that when the FBI showed up because Mikey was making illegal copies of Disney movies, their parents were more pissed off at the traceable mess than the rule breaking. It was a good life. Right up until Mom dragged him into her office to let him know the Yeerks had invaded, the Andalites had showed up to stop them, and Dad had been caught in the crossfire._

_“I’m going to try and see if I can get to Goffrin,” she said, folding her hands neatly in her lap. “If anyone can help us, it’s him.” Here’s the important part. I need you to take the transponder this weekend, drive down to Tampa and see if you can find the Andalite resistance. They should keep you safe if anything goes wrong.”_

_Gerard started to protest but Mom raised her hand. She continued, “If I miss a check in, I don’t want you to walk into the house. Just follow the plan. Go to school like everything is normal, and then follow the plan. I don’t want you worrying your brother. Do not tell him anything unless it’s absolutely necessary.Got it?”_

_No, Gerard wanted to scream, but it wasn’t as if it would change anything. Dad was gone._


	3. Bob POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bob the Chee

“All the big kids are on the jungle gym. Can I climb you instead? Mikey said you make a good climbing tree,” The boy who asks him has dark hair, scabby knees, and one tiny hand squeezing Mikey’s hand tight as can be.

Bob scans the playground until his internal imaging system manages to assess Gerard’s position. West, 12.8 meters. Activity: Scowling in the sand pit. a quarter nanosecond later, Bob adjusts his hologram/forcefield for human interaction. “Sure,” Bob knelt down carefully and waited until his tiny charge was situated before he straightened his knees.

As soon as he had swung into an upright positions, Mikey raised his arms and hopped like he was begging to be picked up. Bob shook his head slightly. Bob’s projection was only fifteen years old and did not have the maneuverability to hold two squirming five year olds. His DNA rubrix calculation did not have Bob’s reaching that level for another 2.78 years.

Frank grabbed the ‘hair’ on either side of Bob’s head and yanked to the left. “Mush, sandworm. To the slide!” 

Mikey jumped up and hooked his arms around Bob’s neck. “Me too!”

Bob twitched under the projection. He wasn’t sure how to remove Mikey without harming him- Harming Mikey would go against his programing. He shuffled the boys over to the slide and hoped their parents would come save him soon.


	4. Compilation Chapter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And the final piece.

Chee Historical File #159843213841-3564185-JOINBMG586  
Crossfile subjects: The Pig War; Yeerk Invasion of Earth; Better Living Industries Scandal; Human Reconstuction Act; Yeerk History; Human History; Andalite History; Chee Interfearence  
Crossfile Biographies: Ray Toro alias Jet Star; Francis Iero alias Fun Ghoul alias Frank alias Mama’s Cannoli; Michael Seerow Way alias Kobra Kid alias Mikey alias Little Taxxon; Gerard Darwin Way alias Party Poison alias Gee alias Number One Grub; B02893-OIUNMJ7-BTUJK39 alias Bob Bryar.

Prologue  
Earth Year 19XX , 

“This is Sub-Visser Four Hundred Nine, Edriss Five-Six-Two of the Sulp Niar Pool. With the time spent on Earth, I need to report that the initial scouting was wrong. Disregard the reports sent of the the past year. Humans are not a Class Five species. I repeat, they are a Class Four Species. They are violent, lethal, vicious and their bodies contain a lethal chemical that kills our kind with long term exposure. We can not hope to defeat infest them any time soon. Essam Two-Nine-Three is dead. I will be dead by the end of the planetary rotarion. Do not invade Earth at all costs. I repeat, do not invade. Humans are lethal.”

Edriss hit the button to end the audio signal. She hands shook over the small, portable device before she picked it and smashed in against the floor. 

The carpet muffled the worst of the noise. It make her furious for a moment before she remember Gerard was sleeping in the next room. The thought stilled her hands from smashing the pieces into smaller shards.

“Do you think it worked?” Edriss looked up at the sound of the voice. Essam stood in the kitchen doorway. His concerned expression bordered on hopeful. 

A quiet, rarely used voice chimed in the back of Edriss’ mind, < _> Edriss nearly startled visibly. She hadn’t heard Adrienne Milan speak in weeks. The human had fried out her mental functions on recreational drugs before Edriss crawled into her brain and infested her. Adrienne had barely kicked up a fuss at first. Recently, she had been so silent, Edriss regularly forgot she wasn’t actually human, just controlling one’s body._

_Edriss flicked her eyes down at the baby cradled in Essam’s arms. “Adrienne hopes so. I hope so.” She picked herself off the ground with care. “I should check on Gerard. It’s his first night in his own bed.”_

_Essam’s expression turned sheepish, “Actually, he fell asleep on our bed before I could take him to his room. My host thought it would be a bad idea to move him and I kind of agreed. Don’t make that face. You agreed that when we cut off our ties, we’d do it as a family, all of us including the hosts. We may have been hot soldiers in the Yeerk army, but come on, Edriss. Our species reproduce by three Yeerks melting together and creating hundred of grubs. What the hell do we know about kids or parenting?”_

_Edriss rolled her eyes. “At least I’m not the lazy parent. As soon as Gerard learned to crawl, you fenced in some grass near our crash site and set him out like free range livestock.” As soon as she brought up the memory, she found herself snickering at the site she had come home to. Her host worked in New York during the week but would leave her apartment on the weekends for her dead grandfather’s farmhouse in eastern Pennsylvania. Edriss had driven home to find her son Gerard crawling in a small padlock outdoors and Essam reading him the children’s books he had edited with Yeerk folktales. Essam had raved about what a perfect solution it was, since he could dunk Gerard in a troph to clean when he soiled himself and Edriss had laughed so hard, shecried and told Essam that she loved him. That’s when she knew._

_That’s when she knew she couldn’t let the Yeerk empire without a thousand light years of her children. They were slugs, small parasitic slugs whose goal was to find enough host bodies for the millions on their planets and their race was ruthless enough to enslave people against their will. She had done it to Donna. Essam had done it to Hildy Gervais. She could never, ever risk the possibility that someone would do that to her fat, giggling baby boy. Either of them. Not Gerard, Not Michael._

_“I’ll send those boy to those filthy, warmongering Andalites before I let my sibling Yeerks anywhere near our children.” She said reaching up to stroke Mikey’s hair. Eight months and it was still a light, pale shade of blond._

_Essam leaned down until their foreheads touched. “Hey, we’re building a house together. A life together.”_

_“Two lives,” she murmured. “We should start setting up our new identities.”_

_“In the morning. In the morning.”_

_****  
Chapter One_

_“Shotgun!” Frank ran for the passenger door before Gerard even stopped the car. Years of practice had turned the move into a skill. Once he got his momentum, he had to jump the curb like a track hurdle to keep ahead of Mikey. Then, it was a double tug on the handle because Gerard’s car was a piece of shit and try to dive in without hitting his head on the mirror, the dash, or the Boba Fett bobbleheads._

_“You’ve had shotgun all week,” Mikey yelled back. Frank didn’t bother to turn around until after he dove into the car and banged his head against the door._

_Gerard brought the car to a stop. “Do you really have to do that every time? I’m going to stop the car eventually.” He looked tired, like he was stressing over one of his art project. Classic Gerard._

_“I hope you bleed.” Mikey opened the door door, throwing his backpack into Frank’s lap. Frank rolls his eyes. Mikey’s backpack weighed like, three ounces at best. The side of his head still throbbed. He checked to make sure he wasn’t bleeding and reached down to turn on the radio while Gerard adjusted the rosary wrapped around the rearview mirror._

_“You guys want to grab something to eat before we get home? Dad’s decided to try going ‘all out’ now that you’re vegan. Mom tipped us off so I’m pretty sure we won’t get in trouble if we’re late today,” Gerard said, carefully adjusting the radio volume._

_Frank shuddered. Mr. Way had this creepy tendency to go all Stepford Husband whenever Frank came over. Frank could still remember the way Mr. Way set half a dozen garnished mini keeshes on a tray when first came over and told Frank that he believe in ‘supporting the social norms of my children’s developmental psychology!’ It wasn’t the smile so much as the way the keeshes were all homemade and _perfectly identical_ that Frank found creepy. “Yes. Please,” he said. “Does that mean you still have to get home by two fifty or do we get to have until three.”_

_Mikey chimed in from the backseat, “He bought organic vegan cheese. I’m guessing we’ve got til three thirty. Vegan diner on US1?”_

_Frank hit his fist against the car ceiling hard enough to shake a few flakes of rust down. “Fuck yeah! Hit the gas, Gee! Fuck the school zone.”_

_Gerard laughed and carefully increased his speed from per hour to twenty._

_Their usual waitress, Jamia, brought them their usual order fifteen minutes after they sat down. Two platters of sweet potato fries and three cups of coffee: one black for Mikey, one black with a bendy straw for Gerard, and one mostly cream and sugar with a tiny umbrella for Frank. It was awesome, even if Gerard kept checking his phone nervously the whole time. He did his best to flirt with Jamia, which last less than fifteen minutes before Gerard gestured towards the door and Mikey dragged Frank out by his shirt collar._

_Frank pulled his feet in so Mikey could slam the door. “I thought you guys said you had time.” He saw Gerard and MIkey exchange a look._

_“We haven’t gotten any calls or texts from them in over hour.” Gerard yanked the door a little too hard when he climbed in._

_Franks jaw dropped. Their mom texted so often that the one time her phone died, she pulled Mikey and Gerard out of school until she could recharge her phone. “You shoulda said something before we left.”_

_Mikey shook his head. “We have a system. If Mom and Dad both miss a check in, we have to go in armed through the back alley. Just in case.”_

_Frank blinked. “I knew you guys were in Witness Protection, but that’s fucking crazy.”_

_The brothers both groaned. “For the millionth time, Frank,” Gerard said. He started the car and pulled out faster that Frank had ever seen him drive. “We aren’t in Witness Protection. Mikey, how many guns do we have in the trunk?”_

_The passenger seat cranked all the way backwards. Frank had to scramble out of the way. Mikey the side and pulled forward part of the backseat, kicking Franks legs a couple times before he just crawled into the trunk._

_“Should Frank get a gun?” Mikey’s voice asked._

_“No! Yes. I mean No,” Frank said quickly._

_Gerard made a face Frank could see in the rearview mirror. “He doesn’t even know how to shoot them. Besides, Mom made that rule about Frank touching the guns, remember?_

_“Oh yeah,” Mikey popped his head out. “Let me check on stun.” Mikey wriggled his shoulder out first and before Frank could so much as blink, he had a gun pointed at him._

_It didn’t look like any gun he had ever seen before. The grip was almost too far for Mikey to handle, and the grey circle shapes on the side made it look like a science fiction prop more than anything that could shoot bullets._

_Frank tilted his head and tried to remember where he’d heard something like that. “Is that from Galaxy Quest?”_

_Mikey’s lip twitched. “Okay, you passed part one. Part Two, if I were to say to you, I am an Andalite from the west traveling to the east, seeking that which has been lost...?_

_“I’d tell say you were mangling a reference from the Mummy.” Frank grinned, shaking his head. “If you guys wanted me to stop flirting with Jamia, you didn’t have to make up a bunch of bullshit about guns and al- What the fuck was that!”_

_About a block away, there was the sight of a bright red light shooting in the air. It almost looked like it was coming from the Way’s end of the block._

_Gerard slowed the car down._

_Frank kept his eyes fixed to their house. The tall, two story colonial had burn marks on the front lawn. The windows on the second floor were shattered and he could hear yelling faintly in the background. In the middle of the wreckage, the black smocking stripes of burned wood outside of the house, was a police car with a slumped body in the backseat. It was Mr. Way._

_“Dad,” Mikey whispered, pressing his face against the window._

_Gerard drove right past the house without slowing down. Frank twisted his neck around. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Mrs. Way’s chrysanthemums were completely trampled. The garage was starting to smoke and Mr. Way was in the back of a police cruiser. He couldn’t believe it._

_Mikey started to shake. He dropped the gun into his lap and covered his eyes with his hands. “Oh my god. Oh my god.”_

_“Frank,” Gerard said. He sounded calm. It was bizarre enough that Frank turned around to meet Gerard’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “Frank, I need you to take the wheel, okay?”_

_“Your house-” Frank tried to say, your house was on _fire_ but he couldn’t quite manage it._

_Gerard pulled the car into the closest suburban driveway and hit the brakes.” Frank, get in the drivers seat right now. Don’t drive home. Go to the garage on 185th and Gambell.” Gerard crawled out of the front seat and into the back._

_Frank felt numb as he let himself out the car and let himself into the driver’s seat. He didn’t know what the hell was going on. As soon as he turned the car on and tried to drive, he nearly hit a mailbox. “Shit,” he said, gripped the wheel until it ached his joints. “Shit, shit.”_

_Mikey reached for Gerard and curled into him. “The plan-”_

_“I don’t care about the plan. Our house is on fire,” Gerard’s voice bent up a hysterical note enough that Frank looked at the yellow light and thought, fuck this. Fuck this, until he was pressing the gas pedal a little harder and reaching for the clutch. “We’re going to Bob’s house.”_

_Frank nearly slammed the brake pedal. “We’re going to Bob the Babysitter’s? You said Gambell, Bob lives on the other side of town and why are we going to your old Babysitter’s house when you Dad was- This is crazy”_

_“Now is not the time,” Gerard snapped back. “Now take a left and go in through the side street entrance. We need to steal a car.”  
***_

_Gerard and Mikey cleared everything out of the subaru except for the flour and a tankard of gasoline. Frank stood on the sidewalk. The shadow of the warehouse blacked them out neatly. Except for the parking garage, everything past 183 rd street appeared to be Warehouses. Giant dark-colored cinder blocks with rows and rows of metal garage doors closing them shut. Frank felt disconnected from the whole thing._

_His backpack was in a pile, next to his friend’s backpacks, a pair of duffle bags, and four grocery bags full of accumulated junk and trash inside the car itself. Frank held on to the little ray gun Mikey had passed over to him. He felt safer knowing he had one, even if it was a fake bit of plastic._

_Gerard splashed a bit of the gasoline on the passenger seat and lit it up without missing a beat. “Don’t worry. Car engines don’t explode unless there’s extreme heat, and every then it’s going to take a while before the fire reaches the four bags in the back. We still have to hustle.”_

_The whole thing took ten minutes, most. The only thing the left behind was the Leonard Nimoy bobblehead that wobbled in the fire light. Gerard picked up most of the luggage, Mikey only picked up his backpack and then picked up his own gun._

_They gestured at the rest of the bags until Frank picked them up automatically. They didn’t walk far either. Only six cars down to reach a beat up Jeep. Frank climbed into the back behind the guys. When they drove the car out the back exit, Gerard’s car was still barely lit. If Frank hadn’t seen the car seat go up himself, he would have guessed it was a forgotten electric lantern._

_“Can you guys drop me off at home?” Frank asked softly._

_“No.” Surprisingly, it was Mikey’s voice that had said it. Mikey looked over the shoulder of the seat, twisting his whole body. “If we take you home, they’ll kill you or worse.”_

_Frank swallowed hard. He didn’t want to bring anything like that back on to his mom. She hadn’t handled it when his Dad died and if she lost Frank too - fuck._

_“What’s going on?” Frank leaned forward, holding his fake gun across his chest the way he would have held a teddy bear. “There were police-”_

_“Those weren’t normal police,” Gerard said. His eyes looked dead. Frank shivered when he met their gaze in the rearview mirror - then in an instant, Gerard’s eyes flickered back to the road. “Their brains have been taken over.”_

_Fucking crazy talk. “Like X-men?” Frank asked._

_“No, Mikey said coldly. “Like body snatching aliens that want to torture out parents for secret information, then us, and then enslave all of humanity.”_

_Suddenly, Frank felt like he couldn’t breathe. He pushed the gun aside and leaned forward until his head was between his knees. He took one deep breathe and held it until he couldn’t anymore. Then he did it again and again until the car came to a stop._

_He felt like he had gone insane and no one wanted to tell him. He wanted to scream or run or do something, anything other than go along with everything. He knew the car had stopped but he didn’t notice anything else until he heard Bob’s voice. “Hey.”_

_Frank raised his head. “If you say something about aliens, I’m going to punch you in the balls.”_

_Bob tucked some of his long blond hair behind an ear and pulled Frank out of the passenger seat. Frank fought him a little on principle but stopped it once Bob pushed him into the house and sat him down on one of the kitchen stools. Gerard and Mikey were sitting close enough together that they looked like they were sitting in each others laps. Mikey looked away from Gerard to give Frank a good hard look._

_“I think he needs to see the puppies.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pelase feel free to take anything from this work and make your own transformative work! Free thoughts to a good home!.


	5. Mikey POV

Hello, my name is Mikey. If you are hearing this on your zero space transponder, I am here to plea for the people of earth. For the Humans, the Taxxons, the Yeerks, the Animorphs, and the Andalites who have come to call it home. My name is Michael Seerow Way, son of Edriss 562, Essam 293 and their hosts Kim and Hilvy Gervais. My brother is Gerard Darwin Way and together with our friends, Ray Toro and Francis Iero, we are the Killjoys. We need your help.

***

MIkey woke up to the feeling on concrete underneath him and the low throb of pain coming from almost everywhere in his body. He took a deep breath and tried wiggling his fingers and toes. Right hand check. Left ha- “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he cursed, reaching for his hand.

“Psst, Mikey. Look up.”

Mikey pushed himself off the ground carefully, trying to register all the bruises. The last thing he remembered was...they went to a bar. Pete’s bar. The one he bought to celebrate surviving the War. Gerard had stolen Mikey’s jeans and they bickered over it for a while. Frank was supposed to meet them there with Jamia. They were there a few hours before the police came in and started attacking? He had the brief image of Ashlee, eight months pregnant throwing a glass at one of the officers. That didn’t make any sense. Ashlee was on the force before her maternity leave. She knew all the officers on the force.

And Just like that, Mikey remember that moment of clarity he had right before the nightstick hit him across the face. The men who had broken into Pete’s bar weren’t cops. 

He was in a cell. Three concrete walls, about the size of his bathroom. No bunk. No toilet. Mikey turned around to see Pete through the bars in a cell across from him. Pete didn’t look so good. His left eye was nearly swollen shut and the dried blood on his shirt made Mikey worried about the underneath.

“Why haven’t you escape yet?” Mikey flailed his hands. He didn’t know what the handgesture was for “morph into wolverine and maim some guard,” but he figured Pete would know what he was getting at.

“They put Ashlee in a glass cage.” Pete’s hand trembled around his cell door bars. “Tobias told us a story once, after they recruited us from the home, about the time Yeerks caught him and put him in a glass cage. They said if I tried to escape, they’d hurt her...” His voice cracked. “It’s worse than we thought.”

Mikey leaned forward until his face was pressed against he cold iron bars. 

Pete’s face gave way to despair. “Mikey, the fake cops who came for us wore the Better Living Industries mark on a blue armbands. I think Visser One is still alive. I think he’s been doing this the whole time.”

Mikey stumbled backwards. It was his worst nightmare come to life. The Pig Wars, also know as the Failed Yeerk Invasion of 2002, had destroyed most of the major North American cities. Mikey and Gerard had left home to join the resistance fighters when Visser One had taken their parents. It had taken years but once the Animorph resistance had taken out Visser One and the Pool ship, the Yeerks surrendered in a matter of days. However, with so much of the cities destroyed, the US had no chance of reconstruction until a small New Jersey company, Better Living Industries stepped up to help. They started by constructing low rent housing, providing business loans, and donating money to the city police forces. Within two years, Better living Industries had taken almost complete control of the North and South American continents. Mikey and some of the other resistance fighters started attending the peaceful protests against BL/i’s policies to force out local businesses and replace them with BL/i subdivisions.

“We saw the footage. He’s dead, pete. Jake Berenson killed him.”


End file.
